Music – Page 30 – Rock Salted

The Caravans – The Best of The Caravans

The Caravans – The Best of The Caravans Savoy DBL 7012 (1977)

In many ways, Albertina Walker‘s Caravans (a group originally founded by Robert Anderson) were the gospel equivalent of Art Blakey‘s Jazz Messengers in the jazz world. Both worked like a “grad school”, finding and training a huge number of musicians who would go on to notable solo careers. The number of star vocalists that came through the ranks of the Caravans is quite astounding. There was “Tina” Walker of course, but also Cassieta George, Inez Andrews, Bessie Griffin, James Herdon, and the big stars Shirley Caesar and James Cleveland. There were few gospel groups that managed to cultivate such rosters of great singers for such a long period of time. The Caravans also heralded the stylistic trends that dominated the sound of contemporary gospel in years to come, with bright solos and slightly muddy backing harmonies. Their style also lent itself to a kind of Vegas-style showmanship too. The group was definitely a little weaker than some of their contemporaries in terms of arrangements. This twenty-three song set is exclusively material recorded for the Savoy label in the late 1950s and the bulk of the 1960s (though the liner notes are skimpy as to recording and release information), and there isn’t a tremendous amount of variety. At a superficial level, though, this is satisfying stuff.

Black Sabbath – Vol 4

Black Sabbath – Vol 4 Vertigo 6360 071 (1972)

It rocks hard. Very hard. If ever there was proof that being a great rock band doesn’t require much in the way of musical proficiency, just a lot of style and a good enough singer, then Black Sabbath would have to be it. Definitely some classic stuff here, with the band in their prime. Their best album, Master of Reality, is only slightly better. Aside: listening to this in my CD changer, when “FX” came on I had to check that the player hadn’t switched to Sun Ra‘s Secrets of the Sun suddenly.

The Can – Monster Movie

The CAN – Monster Movie Music Factory SRS 001 (1969)

Nobody in rock in the late 1960s really approached recording like The CAN (Jaki Liebezeit said the name’s best meaning was as a backronym for Communism Anarchy Nihilism). No two CAN albums sound alike. On Monster Movie, it is a kind of garage rock drive and primal rhythm that ties much of the album together. This album sounds like CAN recorded it in a modified garage — though the original album jacket noted that it was actually recorded in a castle. It has that rawness you can’t fabricate if you try. There is a little more substance to CAN’s next few albums, maybe, but Monster Movie is on roughly the same level as their next few albums with vocalist Kenji “Damo” Suzuki. This is an important facet of CAN’s sound. They could rock out with somewhat straightforward sounds without sounding straightforward at all. They key was the unabashed interest in rock music as something the equal of modern classical music, which was the background numerous band members came from.

“Father Cannot Yell” ignites the album from the start. It was the first track the group recorded for Monster Movie. Malcolm “Desse” Mooney laces his incredibly musical fuming into the mix — his overdubbed vocals were basically his audition for the band. Mooney — a visual artist really — had an innate talent for shouting/chanting lines with cryptic, ominous, and, yes, obnoxious implications. In live performances he would sometimes pick out an audience member and make him or her uncomfortable by making up lyrics that impugned the character of that person (see “Your Friendly Neighbourhood Whore (1969)” from The Lost Tapes). On “Father Cannot Yell,” there is kind of a proto-feminist undercurrent, with Mooney seeming to take the side of a young woman against a domineering father. This is kind of the template for a lot of Mooney’s singing. He goes into sort of an attack mode, seeking to win listeners over to his position in the process. Call it a kind of “performance art” or, perhaps, purposeful and noble bullying. Mooney just had a great vocal intonation for this sort of music: coarse, deep but still a bit nasal.

“Yoo Doo Right” is an “instant composition” (the group didn’t call it improvisation because what they improvised was form). It’s an unusually long (20 minutes) song for 1960s rock. The group had only minimal equipment. They played and when one of the pre-amps started smoking Holger Czukay decided the song was over. It is the last song on the album, taking up the entire second side of the original LP. But it is also the clear highlight. Mooney is less aggressive than on some other songs, and more pensive, but he still is a catalyst for others to launch into furious solos and interludes.

“Mary, Mary So Contrary” is easily the weakest offering. Mooney chants something from a nursery rhyme, but it lacks the confrontational heroism that is present in most of his best performances. In hindsight, replacing it with something from the vault-clearing collections Unlimited Edition (“The Empress and the Ukraine King”) or The Lost Tapes (“Millionenspiel (1969),” “Your Friendly Neighbourhood Whore (1969)” or “Midnight Sky” (1968)”) would have improved the album considerably.

“Outside My Door” is the most conventional rock song here. At least, it isn’t too far from underground rock coming from New York City and maybe San Francisco around this time. There is a harmonica that weaves a kind of familiar, bluesy melodic thread through the song. It may not match “Yoo Doo Right” or “Father Cannot Yell,” but neither is it a liability to the album.

Monster Movie was the first album the group released. Though they did previously record another, tentatively titled Prepared to Meet Thy PNOOM. The shelved recordings were later released as Delay 1968. It was difficult to find anyone who would release The CAN’s albums. They resorted to releasing Monster Movie in a limited fashion (it was later re-released internationally on United Artists). But the rest, as they say, is history.

Spacemen 3 – Sound of Confusion

Spacemen 3 – Sound of Confusion Glass GLALP 018 (1986)

Wow! An early name of The Stooges was “The Psychedelic Stooges” and that well fits what you have here. Take the monster riffs of The Stooges and then trip out like The 13th Floor Elevators or Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and you’ll end up with Sound of Confusion. It’s a rather simple formula, but its no less powerful and enthralling for it. More proof that the 1980s produced plenty of great rock and roll if you were willing to look left of the dial.

Various Artists – Lenox School of Jazz Concert 1959

Various Artists – Lenox School of Jazz Concert 1959 Royal Jazz RJD 513 (1990)

There are a few jazz concerts that changed the world. The “October Revolution in Jazz” series is often cited as one of them. But that concert series from 1964 wouldn’t have occurred without a particular concert at the end of the Lenox School of Jazz summer jazz workshop in 1959. Run by John Lewis of The Modern Jazz Quartet, Ornette Coleman was brought in to an audience of East Coast (mostly New York City) jazz luminaries. Ornette had the opportunity to present his music to the most influential performers in the jazz world. It was this concert, more than any other factor (Cecil Taylor still being ignored and not finding gigs), that convinced the jazz world that something eventually called “free jazz” was a real possibility.

The first track is Ornette’s “The Sphinx.” The melody is perhaps reminiscent of Henry Mancini, but without the irony or kitsch. That was the thing about Ornette. He could merge the simple and complex seamlessly, just as he could high and low culture. There are a lot of good performances here, from many different performers, many of whom are stars in their own right (or at least notable underground/fringe figures, like composition student Margo Guryan), but it is most likely that listeners will come to this seeking to hear Ornette’s performance. Bear in mind this is a mere selection from the concert; not all the performances have survived in recorded form. For listeners most concerned with the earliest recorded performances of Ornette Coleman, note that there are earlier recordings, including Complete Live at the Hillcrest Club (recorded in 1958) and his studio albums for Contemporary Records. But the reason his studio albums for Atlantic Records gained notoriety is because of these concert performances.

Sun Ra – Super-Sonic Jazz

Sun Ra and His Arkestra – Super-Sonic Jazz El Saturn H7OP0216 (1957)

This early offering from Sun Ra is more for completists. That is to say the converted will appreciate this more than the unconverted. It’s nice enough, if a little rough in the performances and recording fidelity. There are certainly hints (“India,” “El is a Sound of Joy,” “Medicine for a Nightmare”) of what was to come. But all we really get are hints, or, at least, undeveloped sketches and first passes. As a composer, Ra was clearly still developing. There is more hard bop here than on any other Sun Ra album, and bear in mind that hard bop sort of represented the mainstream in jazz at the time. But those hints at other things are as weird as anything you could find in the late 1950s — like Ra’s early model electric piano on some of the first few songs. On the whole, though, the results are not quite as impressive as other Ra recordings from roughly the same era when the Arkestra was based in Chicago. “Kingdom of Not” and “Advice to Medics” are my favorite tracks.

Björk – Volta

Björk – Volta one Little Indian TPLP460CD (2007)

Björk has established herself as one of the more interesting mainstream acts of her era. She is quirky and charming in a way that exudes a convincing innocence and naiveté — if always grounded in a sort of melodrama that keeps her firmly connected to the pop charts. Her time in the spotlight was drawing to a close, but Volta is an interesting record even if it is also an uneven one. The duet with Antony on “The Dull Flame of Desire” is quite nice, and some punchier, more dance-able grooves than usual are elsewhere near the top of the album. But things cool off considerably after the first four songs. The very weakest stuff tends to be the rather straightforward balladry and slower material, where it becomes apparent that anyone who has been listening before has already heard it done better. Still, the best Volta has to offer ranks among Björk’s very best.

Anthony Braxton – Trio and Duet

Anthony Braxton – Trio and Duet Sackville 3007 (1975)

Good performances, but, like most Braxton stuff recorded around 1974, this has the feeling of only being at the brink of something big. The opener “Composition 36,” a trio piece with Richard Teitelbaum and Leo Smith, is definitely cut from the same cloth as New York, Fall 1974, which was recorded at sessions just before and after this one. The remainder are standards, with just Brax and Dave Holland. Probably, those new to Braxton should start with Five Pieces 1975 or even New York, Fall 1974 and then work back to this if interested.

Don Cherry – Don Cherry [Orient]

Don Cherry – Don Cherry [A/K/A Orient] BYG YX 4012/13 (1973)

A live album featuring tracks recorded at concerts in France in April and August of 1971. This is world fusion jazz, continuing in the tradition Cherry had established on such prior recordings as Eternal Rhythm and “mu” First Part & Second Part. While this might be less than those other efforts, it is still mighty fine. Cherry gained renown working with Ornette Coleman, and he seemed to draw from Coleman a kind of anarchic sense of egalitarianism. But while Coleman’s music presupposed mostly a base in American musical forms, working primarily with players steeped in bebop, blues, R&B, and rock, and balancing individual performances within those realms, Cherry took musics from different cultures and placed those different cultures on equal footing. Coleman worked with mostly monocultural styles, or at most with roughly binary juxtapositions of jazz and euro-classical composition. On Don Cherry (confusingly, one of a number of self-titled albums he released, but helpfully renamed Orient for reissues), there is room for extended passages, plus many shifts of styles, with a density that is semi-intimate while retaining a sense of fullness. Probably not the place to start with Cherry’s music, but a worthwhile stop in his catalog for fans of his other work.

Don Cherry & Ed Blackwell – El Corazón

Don Cherry & Ed Blackwell – El Corazón ECM 1230 (1982)

In some ways, El Corazón is a continuation of Cherry’s “mu” First Part and “mu” Second Part from the late 1960s. Yet a lot had changed in the meantime. The duo of Cherry and Blackwell are certainly more contemplative and restive here. This album also features some of the trademark ECM Records chamber jazz sound. The album remains eclectic. There is a tribute to The Skatalites‘s sax man Roland Alphonso, a Thelonious Monk song, and various world music influences on display. Perhaps the best offering is the wonderful percussion-heavy piece “Near-in.”